


Rebecca Remembers All

by Omega_93



Category: Felix Fortuna, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Omake, fic of a fic, recursive
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:29:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omega_93/pseuds/Omega_93
Summary: In which Rebecca Costa-Brown finds her way to Hogwarts alongside Fortuna Floris.A recursive fanfiction of Felix Fortuna by Chartic, Maroon Sweater, Pericadrium, and tearlessNevermore.https://archiveofourown.org/works/19992961/chapters/47335879
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	1. Rebecca Remembers All... or does she?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chartic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chartic/gifts), [xbritomartx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbritomartx/gifts), [CPericardium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CPericardium/gifts), [tearlessNevermore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tearlessNevermore/gifts).



Rebecca hated children, and the fact that she was a child herself simply was not relevant, thank you very much. 

They shouldn’t have been worthy of her disdain, but feeling like an outcast among one’s peers was the fate of a child prodigy. She refused to be _lonely_ , because it wasn’t her fault that scintillating conversation among her peers was in short supply. Hatred towards her classmates and the world in general was much more comfortable, she discovered.

A small ember had lit inside her when she received the letter inviting her to Howarts, clutched in the talons of a proud tawny owl. She’d believed, for a few weeks, that perhaps the children around her were simply mundane reflections of the special society she truly belonged in. Perhaps perfect memory wasn’t a hell made only for Rebecca, and there would be others like her.

That idea had gone out the window during her first and only foray into Diagon Alley.

Oh, it was pretty enough, and for a while it inspired awe in her just as much as the other muggle children that were following after Professor McGonagall like ducklings. Inanimate objects made animated, flowing robes that looked like something out of a historical drama on the telly, a smooth wooden stick made of walnut and phoenix feather that somehow felt like it was a part of her she’d always been missing, and so much more.

The disappointments started when she found out that wizards and witches required a _broom_ to fly, and they didn’t stop there.

Wizarding children rubbed their noses on their sleeves as much as muggle children. Their juvenile brains understood the concept of personal space and tact no better than any of the hellions she’d grown up around. Worst of all, a mere glance told her not one of these people was like her, not even the older children or the adults. 

She walked away that day with a beautiful calico cat she named Rick, an assortment of magical devices she was assured would see her through a school year of learning how to do magic, and a heavy heart. 

Malaise surrounded her for weeks—finishing all her textbooks before the end of the first day in a fit of desperate pique certainly didn’t help matters. She was bored and the loneliness and knowledge that she really was a _freak_ even among the people she hoped would be her kind was creeping in, setting talons into her brain and raking them down to the stem until she felt like everything inside her head had been run through a blender.

Her parents never said anything, but she’d memorised books on body language and psychology and she could see the signs for what they were. 

That widening of the eyes when she displayed knowledge she shouldn’t, the little flinch when she entered a room, the hitch of their breath when she so much as went to _talk to them._ It didn’t take a genius to see it, but even noticing that much should’ve been beyond the capabilities of a child her age, and it only made her feel worse. 

She hated it. Hated _them_ , all of them, for being so painfully ordinary and making her feel like she was alone in the world.

It wasn’t her fault she could remember everything in perfect clarity. She didn’t ask to be able to lift a car with one hand, nor had she ever desired to be invincible to damage or fly around with no obvious means of propulsion. It wasn’t that she wanted to be normal, god no— _Merlin,_ no, she supposed—it was that she wanted everyone else _not to be_.

Everything changed when she entered that compartment on the Hogwarts Express.

The day had started off a dull one. Dull parents who couldn’t leave fast enough when they dropped her off, a dull train station with uninspiring architecture, and a dull train that didn’t look any more impressive than a muggle one—what was the point of even using a train if it was just going to be an ugly steam locomotive, anyway?

She’d arrived early, so there were few enough people on the platform that she felt comfortable floating a centimetre or so off the ground, lifted up her bags all by herself, and ventured forth into the Hogwarts Express with Rick draped over her shoulders like a scarf.

A quick scout of the train’s layout was the work of only a few minutes with her flight, and soon she found her way to what she calculated would be the nice carriage that wouldn’t be bothered by snot-nosed brats too much. When she opened the door, it was more of a disappointment than a surprise to find someone else already there. For half a second she contemplated leaving to find another compartment, but discarded the notion in a quarter. 

The girl had been reading a book, but she looked up when Rebecca slid the door open. Rebecca froze, and it took her a moment to win back the breath that a single look at this girl had stolen from her lungs.

It wasn’t that she was beautiful. Girls their age could rarely be described as pretty unless they were Rebecca— _cute_ was the more applicable descriptor, and even that didn’t feel right, not really. Still, something in her appearance plucked a string in Rebecca’s heart, playing a song she was sure she hadn’t heart before yet was still painfully familiar. 

Straight black hair was common the world over. Brown wasn’t an unusual eye colour, and their shape wasn’t unique. The silhouette of her face and the tone of her skin were only special if you’d somehow never seen someone from the Mediterranean—the Tuscan region of Italy, at a guess—before. The fedora was a few decades out of fashion but hardly unheard of.

And yet, altogether they formed a picture that prodded something at the back of her head, stirring a memory loose like dirt in clear water. However, the dirt settled, the memory slipped away, and nothing remained but a faint sense that she _should_ recognise the person before her.

Deja vu.

Rebecca didn’t forget things. Ever. Not once in her life from the time her adolescent brain had developed the ability to form memories. Every moment of every day—seven years, eight months, and nineteen days of her life—recorded in crystal clarity and there to be recalled at the speed of thought.

So why did she feel like she'd met this girl when she knew for certain she hadn't?

“Do you mind if I sit here?” Rebecca asked. Only a second had passed, and she still felt like a blithering plebe.

“Go ahead,” the girl replied.

Rebecca stowed her trunk away in the overhead compartment, then took a seat across from the strangely familiar stranger. Rick hopped off her shoulders and relocated to her lap, where he curled up in a ball and promptly fell back asleep.

Fortuna eyed him oddly, and Rebecca found she couldn’t begin to guess why. The girl had no noticeable tells.

_How interesting._

“Rebecca Costa-Brown,” she offered.

“Fortuna Floris,” the girl replied in kind.

Again, faint recognition. Like that name had been written in her mind in pencil then badly erased.

Fortuna shifted minutely, drawing Rebecca’s attention. Her clothes fit her well and they were worn neatly, clearly ironed and washed. That the girl was here as early as Rebecca implied she had no one to see her off, and from there it was fair to assume the care for her clothes was her own. A level of self-composure that was rare among their age group, and it extended to the rest of her. There was no snot under her nose or dirt on her face. Her hair was well-groomed but not styled in any particular way. Her nails were immaculate and her teeth pearly white and clean.

 _Neat and tidy_ , Rebecca thought. It was a low bar, but that put her above most of her peers. That ember of hope that had been snuffed out in Diagon Alley was kindling once more.

“You’re a muggle?” Rebecca asked when Fortuna offered no conversation. The fashionable attire of witches and wizards tended to… stand out.

“I am. And you?”

“Same. Born in California, but my family moved to London when I was five for my dad’s work at a bank. Never even considered the possibility that magic might be real.”

Fortuna nodded, unperturbed by Rebecca’s vocabulary. “You’ve got a faint accent.”

“I’m impressed you noticed.”

“People our age are usually unobservant.”

Rebecca blinked. “And you’re not, apparently.”

“I’m not, no.”

Neat, tidy, and observant. Smart. _Interesting_. All good virtues on their own, but the sum of them together gave her an answer she’d always wanted, and almost didn’t dare to dream she might have found.

_Is she like me?_

Rebecca was enraptured in a way she'd never felt before.

Unfortunately, some stuck up little toad of a boy entered the compartment and sat down with nothing more than an introduction, and she resolved to find a way to mess with her memories so she could forget his name. The nerve!

More followed him. A girl this time, with an annoying accent, a crude tongue, and an obsession with fitness, if her muscled arms were anything to go by. Rebecca could’ve snapped her like a twig.

Last was some ditzy bint who drew Fortuna’s attention and Rebecca’s ire in equal measure by slamming the door like some kind of barbarian. Then--then!--the two other girls started roughhousing like preschoolers! Fortuna subtly got them to settle down, but her indignance remained. This was why she hated her own age group.

The train pulled away as the compartment descended into the kind of idle, childish chatter that seemed designed to drive Rebecca up the wall.

Fortuna engaged her in conversation a few times before she could lose her temper, but soon even that wasn’t enough and she had to leave before she did anything she wouldn’t regret.

She’d been foiled before she’d even been able to begin her investigations, but the school year was long, and the mystery that was Fortuna Floris was going nowhere.

For the first time in a long time, Rebecca found herself growing excited. If someone had told her when she woke up that morning she’d be looking forward to life at Hogwarts, she wouldn’t have believed them.

~~~


	2. Trouble On The Train

Rebecca moved towards the back of the train, seeking a quiet place to debate the merits of flying to Hogwarts herself. She left Rick in Fortuna’s care, putting a level of trust in the girl that, once again, she couldn’t explain. Her thoughts were caught in a loop. No matter where they strayed, they found their way back to  _ Fortuna _ .

This left her conflicted. On the one hand, she wanted to be around Fortuna as much as possible so she wouldn’t miss any important information. On the other, the children in that compartment were woefully inadequate and straying dangerously towards intolerable. 

Eventually, the rear end of the train came into view. She flew the last few meters, but before she could reach the door, the driver slammed on the brakes. With lighting-fast reflexes, Rebecca adjusted her momentum so she wouldn’t go crashing through anything important. The train screeched to a halt.

Opening the door, a cursory glance at the surroundings told her there was no castle in the vicinity, only the rolling hills of the Scottish Grampians and a coal-black sky. It didn’t take a child genius to realise something was amiss, but she probably figured it out faster than most.

The air went cold, stabbing at her skin like a thousand tiny knives. Ice gathered on the windows unnaturally fast, until the glass was almost opaque. The torches dimmed, plunging her into near-darkness.

Rebecca spun back to the train’s interior as a shrill wail of pure anguish and primal fear slashed through the quiet and stabbed deep into the core her skull. She grimaced. Her mood had already been soured by children today, and she had no desire to deal with a  _ tantrum _ because some little runt was afraid of the dark. Turning back to the open door, she prepared herself to jump off, then stopped.

Tilting her head curiously, Rebecca regarded the problem before her. Or problems, plural. Quite a lot of them.

Spectres floated on the wind, circling the train in the hundreds, and, as Rebecca watched, they converged like a flock of vultures on carrion. Clad in ragged, wispy black robes, their faces hidden beneath dark hoods by inky shadow, it was clear they intended to enter the train by the very same door she’d been planning to leave from..

In her childhood, she’d watched a vulgar TV show called ‘Superman.’ At the time, in her innocent ignorance, she’d thought this ‘Superman’ was just like her and thus her calling was to go out and punch bad guys to make them stop being such big meanies. Ultimately the plan had fallen through when she’d gone researching crime statistics and found that beating up criminals wasn’t going to solve anything. At that point she was already well aware she was different to everyone else, so at least she got the idea for maintaining a ‘secret identity’ out of it. Keeping her powers to herself might not have occurred to her, otherwise.

The point was, it gave her some considerable nostalgic delight to throw all her strength into a punch aimed at the first cloaked figure to came within arm’s reach of her.

Her aim struck true. The beast folded around her fist like a crumpled up piece of paper. A fraction of a second later, the laws of momentum got to work, and the force of her strike transferred from her outstretched fist to the beast itself.

In that moment, Rebecca discovered the grim pleasure of punching something so hard it was sent flying beyond the horizon.

A ruckus was building in the train behind her. Fearful shouts, terrified screams, barked spells, all blending together and overlapping until it all sounded like the chirping of countless insects. Minuscule apparitions licked at the edge of her vision, and they got bigger, more numerous, the more she tried to ignore it. She could feel them inside her mouth, pushing down her throat, crawling into her lungs and wedging themselves there. 

She couldn’t breathe. She was so cold. Each shadowed insect drained something from her, until there was no happiness left in the world.

It was only by virtue of her perfect memory that she fought through the panic. Before her eyes, the bugs swarmed her with cruel intelligence, tearing and slashing at her skin as a voice that sounded like her own screamed bloody murder. In her mind’s eye, where memories were sacrosanct, there was nothing. She was floating a foot off the ground, alone in the corridor save for a pair of the hooded creatures that loomed over her.

“Away, dementors!” She heard someone shout. “You won’t find Black here, you foolish beasts!”

The feeling of bugs crawling over her skin was rather visceral, but if her power could be believed, it wasn’t actually  _ there _ . 

Rebecca took a moment to calm herself. Her breath misted in front of her face, and the little puffs of steam coagulated in the air, forming phantom shapes that turned to blurs in her vision. She could hear the roar of a mighty beast. It spoke with a thousand voices, screaming condemnations and taunts that came across more as emotions than words. Loss. Despair. Crippling ennui. 

It was hard to reconcile what was clearly before her with what her memory screamed wasn’t there, but she did it. She was Rebecca Costa-Brown, prodigy among prodigies, and something as inane as an illusion would not deter her. She focused her mind inward, ignoring the present in favour of moments just passed. With this, she could deal.

She was aware this had dire implications for minds that weren’t as brilliant as hers. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do to help anyone else beyond punching the source. Luckily, it was hardly a leap of logic to link the arrival of these  _ dementors _ and the pandemonium that had descended upon the train.

Reaching out, she grabbed the nearest dementor by the area where its throat was supposed to be, then squeezed with all her might. The creature made no sound, but it thrashed violently. 

The other rounded on her. The cold encroached with a million tiny pinpricks on her skin, forcing its way into her lungs. The dementor brought its face close to hers, its hood yawning open like a gaping maw. 

This turned out to be a poor decision on its part as she brought her face closer to its rather more violently, and her head was harder. The monster collapsed to the ground, and Rebecca wasted no time in bringing her foot down on the inky darkness beneath its hood.

She had neither intended nor expected to kill the creature with her first stomp, but when it had the audacity to get back up—none the worse for wear, for that matter—she changed her mind and brought her foot down once more. It was the principle of the matter. If one had the privilege of getting their skull crushed under Rebecca’s boot, they should bloody well appreciate it and stay crushed.

Alas, she only got a few more hits in before a construct of pure light and warmth washed through the train. Its brief passing did more damage than all her hits combined, and the dementors fled in droves. The one trapped in her grip thrashed desperately. When she let it go, it zipped off like a popped balloon.

Rebecca watched it fly away, conflicting thoughts and feelings roiling inside her.

She was so cold.

People stared. A scruffy man in shabby clothing took her hand, leading her back to the ground. He gave her chocolate and told her it would make her feel better.

She took a bite. Warmth spread, first to her core, and then outward. Her fingers and toes went from icicles to being wrapped in a cosy blanket. The gaping void in her chest filled with molten warmth until her heart started beating again. Something chased away the mist in the air, parting it like a curtain. 

Soon, the cold was only a memory. Unfortunately for her, that memory would always be there. The screams would never stop echoing, the chill eternally encroaching.

There were so many people looking at her. Eyes wide or narrowed, they were fixed on her like she created a gravity all her own. That wasn’t right. She  _ defied _ gravity. How could they not understand that?

The shabby man led her back to her compartment, punctuating the trip with soft words and a smile that was supposed to be reassuring but pulled at the scar that slashed down the side of his face, twisting his features. 

Fortuna and the unimportant children were still there, and they looked at her with such concern it made her want to throttle them all.  _ They _ were the snot-nosed, immature, pea-brained  _ brats _ here, not her. Their pity was poison, and something dark within her reared its head.

One look at Fortuna crushed that feeling. She seemed haunted, her skin pale. Completely unlike the personification of composure she’d been before. 

“What happened to you guys?” she asked.

It was the door-slamming idiot who replied. “One of those dementors came into our compartment, and Fortuna freaked out.” Her eyes flicked to the shabby man. “Professor Lupin helped her, then we told him you were out there on your own, so he went to look for you.”

_ He _ was a professor? She’d thought the magical world might have eased up on the disappointments when she’d found someone so intriguing, but evidently not. She reviewed the rubbish he’d been spouting as he lead her back to the compartment, friends this and life at Hogwarts that, with a few questions about what she was doing to the dementors trickled in. He certainly played the part of a teacher, now that she thought about it.

It was a bit annoying that a professor already knew about her unique ability, but perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. Hiding her power had always been tiresome, and if there was a place where her power would fit in, the ‘magical world’ was surely it.

“Now that you’re back with your friends, you should be alright. Eat your chocolate, and if you don’t feel better, please tell a prefect or your head of house after the sorting. They’ll take you to Madam Pomfrey.” Professor Lupin smiled down at her, then swept his gaze over her new ‘friends’. “Now, I really do have to see to that other student.”

Lupin swept out of the compartment, striding down the corridor with hasty steps.

“Freaked out?” Rebecca said, turning her attention to Fortuna.

The others settled into their seats, and Fortuna brought her cat up to her chest—Harbinger, she’d said his name was; why did even that stir some faint recognition in her? 

“It’s okay,” Fortuna said, smiling warmly. “I just had a bad reaction, is all. Professor Lupin said that happens to some people. I’m alright now, though.”

Rebecca blinked. There was nothing in Fortuna’s expression or body language to contradict her words. It was like the vulnerability she’d shown earlier had vanished without a trace.

Fortuna Floris became more fascinating by the moment, though it made Rebecca feel bad to think that way. She took a seat, letting Rick hop off from one of the shelves to take his rightful place in her lap.

“What about you?” Fortuna asked. “What happened out there?”

“Nothing much,” Rebecca lied.


	3. Sorting It Out

If Hogwarts hadn’t looked like something out of a fairy tale, she would have been terribly disappointed and perhaps even tempted to tear it down just to spite this barmy society she’d been inducted into. She’d never done anything like that before, but she felt like she could if she wanted to.

As it was, the castle lived up to its grand reputation; numerous towers that climbed towards the sky like grasping fingers, webbed by blocky ramparts and pitted by windows that gleamed like beacons in the dark. It was a picture out of fantasy transposed on reality, and Rebecca’s heart stopped hammering long enough to allow itself a brief flutter before going back to its deep, distressed beat.

Rebecca was one of the first off the train. Much to her disgust, the platform was under assault by torrential rain without a suitable shelter in sight. If her hair got frizzy, she’d be having words with whoever was responsible for planning the station’s layout. 

Her heart was still beating like a drum, but she ignored it. Introspection and feelings were irritating foibles her future self could deal with.

A giant of a man with a scraggly black beard and a belly rounder and more with more girth than an elephant—at least, so she suspected—called out for first years, and she made her way towards him. Somehow, she ended up with the girl with the annoying accent at her back.

“Christ on a fuckin’ bike! That bloke’s massive! I thought Crazy Chris was hench, but he's got nothing on this guy.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes. There was no escaping the girl in the bustling crowd, so she resigned herself to count to ten and back in her head.

“Righ’, this way!” The giant’s voice was loud and deep enough the other children could probably feel it in their bones.

He lead them away in the opposite direction from the older students. A crowd of waddling little ducklings thirty strong followed at his back, heads swivelling to take in their surroundings with wide eyes. 

Rebecca had to resist the temptation to do the same. Hogwarts was impressive, she’d concede that much. Then again, if it was a rotten shack in the woods she would’ve been happy to attend there as long as she got to unravel the mystery she’d encountered on the train.

Speaking of which, Fortuna Floris was only a few paces ahead of her, dragging the annoying girl from their shared compartment behind her. The two of them approached a small, muddy decline at the edge of the platform at the giant man’s direction. 

Rebecca observed with a raised eyebrow as Fortuna skated down the hill with the grace of a master, even while having to balance the other girl behind her. She’d watched the winter Olympics on telly a few years ago, and there were professional figure skaters who’d be jealous of Fortuna’s balance.

The girl with the annoying accent stomped down behind them with a whoop of delight and a stupid idiom Rebecca didn’t bother to parse, carrying the Boy-Whose-Name-Shall-Not-Be-Remembered in her arms.

Never one to be outdone, Rebecca simply floated down the hill. Getting soaked in the rain was one thing, but muddying her boots and robes was out of the question, thank you.

More than a few students stared at her with mouths agape as she touched down on the little pier at the bottom of the hill, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she devoted her attention to taking in the grand sight before her.

The lake was a deep, inky black, swallowing all but the twinkling stars that dotted the silhouette of Hogwarts castle. What struck her most was how it was the _only_ source of light in sight. The thought brought her back to memories of life in London and the picture book of constellations that had never had the chance to see much use.

In the city, light pollution stole away the full majesty of the night sky. Here, that probably wasn’t the case. Would she be able to make out the nearest arm of the Milky Way and behold the sea of stars beyond?

There was a blur to her vision as she peeked at the castle through the rain.

 _I want to see them,_ she thought. Followed by one of the first inquisitive thoughts she'd had about her abilities in years: _could I fly to those stars?_

Astrology class had risen sharply in the ranks of her most anticipated Hogwarts activities. Seeing if she could fly to mars made its way to the very top.

Her annoyance with the weather tripled. She wanted to confirm her theories _right now._

A soft touch on her arm brought her back to earth. Her feet hadn’t left the ground, but she’d felt like she’d already been flying miles higher than she’d ever dared try.

Fortuna was staring up at her with gentle eyes. “Come on. Might as well stick together,” she said.

Rebecca nodded and allowed herself to be led along by the wrist. Fortuna took them to a wooden boat, settling them between the annoying girl and the stupid girl—Jessica and Angelique if she was feeling charitable—while the nameless boy skulked at the back. She barely had time to wonder how they were supposed to cross the lake with no oars before the boat started drifting forward on its own.

Rebecca looked over the edge, but she could see no obvious engine. Then again, with the heavy rain hammering at the water, throwing the surface into chaos, it was probably no surprise that any clues as to the spell’s methods were obfuscated to her.

The use of magic for something so mundane struck her as a bit flashy, but she dismissed the thought.

It didn’t take long to cross the lake in their column of rickety old boats despite the downpour, the only real disturbance coming when the giant bellowed out a warning as they approached an overhang, and soon they were being herded into the castle itself up a set of wide stone stairs. 

Fortuna was silent most of the way, and Rebecca felt no need to converse with the others, so it had been a quiet journey, and little changed when they got to the castle itself. The other students nattered away, awed at their new surroundings, while Rebecca drunk in the sights before her with a mind to savour them properly later.

Sleep was a time-wasting disease she’d never been afflicted with, so she’d have no lack of hours to pour over the images, dissecting them and wriggling her fingers around inside to find their secrets.

The giant led them to a set of wooden doors that were twice as high as he was, then left them all outside as we went to fetch a professor.

Rebecca took that moment to finally have a bit of introspection, barely registering Jessica’s silly comment about golden loos.

All in all, she felt… odd. Stronger and more negative emotions than this were supposed to rear their ugly heads after a stressful situation, but she was muted save for her hammering heart. The most notable feeling she’d had since her little dalliance with the Dementors had been that brief moment of whimsy when she beheld the majesty of Hogwarts in the night.

The great doors groaned open, and Rebecca added those thoughts to her growing “deal with it later” list.

A man who would’ve stood at eye-level with her chin emerged, and Rebecca found her eyebrows climbing to her hairline. She’d met goblins at Gringotts, but this man—presumably one of the professors—sported no hooked nose or malevolent sneer. 

“Ah, good. I’m glad to see everyone here. I hope the little storm outside hasn’t _dampened_ anyone’s spirits,” he said, his head swivelling like a fan.

Predictably, the nameless one laughed at the professor’s vapid humour, and there were a few more nervous titters among the crowd. 

For her part, Rebecca just stared, willing the man to _get on with it_.

To his credit, he redeemed himself with a swish of his wand that sent the water on her robes and the mud on everyone else’s slithering down the stairs from which they’d come. 

He introduced himself as the head of Ravenclaw, Filius Flitwick, then beckoned towards the looming doors. “Please keep up, the Sorting awaits!”

He led them to a hall alive with excited teenagers, overlooked by a high table sporting a group of colorfully-clad adults who were presumably the Professors. Before the high table sat a lonely stool, proudly presenting a shabby old hat.

“Come now, follow me,” Flitwick said.

The other children eyed the situation warily, but Rebecca was made of more studious stuff. The tradition of the Sorting had been mentioned in the Adventures of Asmodeus Longbotmes and it had been going on for centuries. When the hat started singing, she and Fortuna were the only ones who didn’t cringe in surprise.

After the hat was done with its song and the crowd was finished with its enthusiastic applause, the hall went quiet. 

“When I call your name, please come up, sit down, and place the hat on your head. Amica, Louise!”

The others whispered between themselves behind her, Rebecca listening with half an ear. Assuming alphabetical order, it wouldn’t be long before her name was called.

Sure enough, “Costa-Brown, Rebecca!” Professor Flitwick called out.

There was a brief moment where Rebecca considered floating forward, but humility won out and she walked instead.

She took a seat on the stool, allowing Professor Flitwick to perch the hat on her head.

Nothing happened. Rebecca looked around, a little confused. The hat contorted and gyrated atop her skull just like it had done for the others, but it remained quiet. 

She was almost to the point of asking the Professor if everything was okay when the hat bellowed out, “Slytherin!”

Rebecca kept her face carefully neutral as she approached the Slytherin table to a smattering of polite applause. From what she’d read, she was going to spend seven years showing a group of horrendous little snots what the score was—but then again, she probably would have ended up doing the same no matter what house she ended up in.

Ultimately, she decided her house meant little to her. Her interest was only in the company. One in four chances weren’t the best, but she decided to try out some optimism for a change. She barely registered Jessica joining her at the table, browbeating some other first-year out of the way so she could sit by Rebecca’s side.

It was only when the hat called out, “Gryffindor!” from atop Fortuna Floris’ head that she allowed herself to feel some modicum of anger.

The house of Slytherin was going to pay for this.

~~~


End file.
